Tribute to leather of the young Gaia. The first look on the catwalk indicates the mood of the fashion show, is a kind of introduction that gives suddenly an idea of the entire collection. It true, but it doesn’t mean that all outfits will look the same, because, in sequence, the mood is developed with different shapes and colours; but the first outfit remains – in the designer’s mind- the most important. Gaia Trussardi doesn’t disappoint this tradition, and infact for her debut she choose a total look that represents the leitmotif of her first s/s: leather and white. A hard inheritance, the Trussardi’s one: a maison that had in the past some problems to identify itself in a specific style, changing its personality too many times. And Gaia, properly, starts her path with a tribute to the strong point of Trussardi: leather, indeed. “To maintain a stylistic coherence, carrying on and merge in a single aesthetic the values that made the brand’s history is essential”. Some details in blue, a very particular suit (blazer and bermuda shorts) made of python leather, but in the main part milk-white or off-white, that gradually becomes darker till the shades of beige; “Actually” talks on Gaia, “these are the colours that represent an idea of relaxed elegance and are part of the brand DNA”. “Beige, white… the no-colours typical of the desertic stretches of American West; these shades matched with red and blue of the breath-taking sunsets of those places, give birth to a chromatic palette that evokes the landscapes that ispired the collection”. First outfit of the Trussardi 2014 s/s collection; below Filippo Timi with the python suit, picture by S. Giffthaler.

That work fabric become a must. In our wardrobes there’s surely a denim garment. Everybody owns a pair of “five pockets”, and many of us have got at least one shirt and a piece of outerwear. In recent times, denim canvas has been proposed by Prada and Raf Simons as a fabric for suits and Moschino -as always- made it a cult.  Not to mention the jeans lines created by designers in the “made in Italy” age: exactly in 1985, De Niro wore a denim shirt on the cover of the first issue of Max. In a few words, that fabric born to make work clothes, after the cultural revolution in ’68, has written an important part of fashion and costume history, and carries on with its mission of being a timeless trend. Stone Island since many years ago has reread successfully in an original and surprising way a lot – during its history-  of denim pieces, shaped and transformed by the intuition of a designing team headed by the president, Carlo Rivetti. Among the most eccentric garments, there’s the Seventies-inspired dungaree, the stone-washed trousers with their worn look mood; and even the sweatshirt, that thanks to Stone Island, in 2009 has become a trait d’union between fashion and freestyle. Today, wisely in line with the bicycle trend, it proposes stretch denim trousers with a reflective logo print in the right leg inner, to turn-up to be visible in the dark. Still life: Cycling Pants by Stone Island, P/E 2014. Picture by Toni Thorimbert for Max Denim: denim sweatshirt Stone Island.

The impercebtible change of shapes. The commercial success of Prada is not “only” based on the essentially classic soul of its collections, revised every season according to new trends; an update maintained thanks to very slight changes in fabrics (the patterns, from the marked checks to the weak ones), in shapes (lapels two cm wider or narrower) and in leather finishing (shoes can be made of leather in solid or fading colour). The secret of Prada stays in reaching the approval of fashionistas, but especially in extending the strongest contents of the collections to traditional menswear. “My vision of fashion is absolutely up-to-date. I want to highlight the more human and sensitive side of people. And to check on what men really want to wear. I like real, apparently normal, fashion. And for this winter I designed the perfect classic clothes of today: the perfect trousers, the perfect coat…”, so Miuccia Prada describes her “apparently normal” show. The styling re-marks an “apparently” flawed man that wears “normal” clothes. The mix of prints (micro and macro checks), the bright colour matched with the hyper-classic charcoal, the shirt with a frill that can be removed: precious details that guide men’s taste. The outcome of a brilliant creativity in ferment.

 The importance of knowing how to mix. The collection designed by Stefano Pilati for Ermenegildo Zegna reconciles an excellent knowledge of fabrics and styling and a grounded and good connection with tradition. Zegna is his world; in if tomorrow Giorgio Armani will decide to pull out, Pilati would be the only one able to replace him without retracting the DNA of the King. His secret is based on simplicity in tailoring, enriched by magnificence of fabric and a very refined selection of shades. The result of his debut will be in stores from January, with a collection including also overcoats: a demi-forgotten piece in the mosaic of menswear (if a man has at least a little awareness of fashion, his collection of clothes must be necessarily multiform), to whom Pilati gives back meaning and dignity. “I have a very colourful collection of clothes, so I can combine many different looks” says Pilati, and stabilizes an idea that defines “brokes suit”: “The highest grade of chic is matching the jacket of one suit with the trousers of another, provided that their shades merge with harmony and it looks like a suit in turn. A suit that – however – reveals a big personality”. If his Zegna s/s collection has already been an elation of materials and shapes, I imagine something really exciting for Winter 2014 Collection, that we’ll see in January: I’ll keep you up-to-date real-time on www.themenissue.com.

 An elegance made of multicoloured stripes. Paul Smith: a style icon. His clothes: a perfect mix of refinement and irony that fully represents English style and culture. Paul Smith’s fashion seduces people successfully thanks to a varied system of acute and smart intuitions that involve his whole world, from clothing to accessories up to fragrances: a 360 degrees conception in which all the elements are mixed with extreme coherence and complete harmony. The stores also sell vintage pieces, such as toys, design objects and books. They’re laboratories of ideas that tell his passions: sport, music, women, collecting, art and, obviously, fashion. Paul Smith has expressed his brilliance til the 80s and he became well-known in Italy in the following decade, testing – one of the first – colour and art in fashion; his “stripes”, his fluid shapes, the rock hints, corrupt the collections without excluding the codes of elegance, ennobled by fine fabrics and intentionally classic and sartorial cuts. But there’s always an eccentric detail that distinguishes his idea of tradition: in the picture, the model wears a classic double-breasted suit, but its pattern is slightly asymmetric. And the shirt: the contrasting stripe along the buttons looks like a tie. Rather, it has to be worn without the tie. A total look Paul Smith in this picture by Gianluca Fontana (above) and (below) a still life picture of cufflinks with the typical motif with coloured stripes.